Chapter 49

‘Can I take this with me?’

I stared at the faintly glowing Glowstone, lost in thought for a moment.

‘It would be nice to use it as a material…….’

Regretfully, I soon let go of the thought.

This dungeon belonged to Yggdrasil as private property.

They might cause trouble, claiming the Glowstone had gone missing.

And the decisive reason was that I didn’t have the physical strength to break the wall.

‘I’ll have to gather them as planned by hunting monsters.’

I resumed walking when I belatedly sensed something strange.

‘It’s too quiet.’

I turned my head to look up and down the passage.

……As if by magic, my teammates had vanished without a trace.

‘Did they already leave?’

On second thought, it made sense.

They were cadets from the lowest ranks.

Overwhelmed by tension, they must have forgotten about me and hurried on.

‘Either way, things are working out.’

Maybe it was thanks to moving at their sluggish pace, forced into empty, stifling steps.

For some reason, I felt a sense of liberation.

I quickly moved in the opposite direction.

‘Before meeting them again, I should hurry and gather materials.’

I would hunt the main monsters that appeared in this dungeon.

If possible, I wanted to defeat the boss by myself.

‘This place is divided into zones based on the presence of monsters.’

They had gone toward the safe zone where no monsters appeared.

I stepped into the opposite direction, the danger zone.

How much time had passed?

‘Finally, I see one.’

In the far corner, I caught sight of something squirming.

I recognized it instantly.

‘A slime imbued with titanium.’

Titanium was a common, cheap material among metals.

‘But ironically, processed titanium items were sold at a very high price.’

The reason was that titanium processing techniques were extremely difficult.

‘Even in the game, users who trained processing for over a year couldn’t properly use titanium.’

But who was I?

With ✿Animal✿Farm✿ lending me crafting techniques, I had nothing to worry about.

On the contrary, I welcomed it.

“I’ll gladly take this.”

I grabbed Hwayo’s card from the air and walked toward the slime.

I didn’t know how much time had passed.

“Let’s rest a little, just a little.”

I sat down against the wall, wiping off sweat.

‘Not only materials, but I’ve also earned quite a lot of experience points.’

I had been moving quickly, hunting every monster I came across.

Mostly mimics and slimes.

‘Mimics burned in fire, and slimes evaporated.’

Thanks to attribute advantage, I could hunt them easily.

I held Shurk’s card and opened up a subspace before me.

Looking inside, I saw the materials I had gathered floating around.

Among them, I grabbed a black lump of titanium ore and pulled it out.

‘This is really convenient. Using it firsthand makes me appreciate it even more.’

Thanks to the subspace, I didn’t need to carry a bag.

It saved me a great deal of stamina and time that would otherwise be wasted on carrying one.

And I didn’t have to worry at all about losing anything.

‘I can take out whatever I want, whenever and wherever I need it.’

For someone like me, who disliked hassle, it was the perfect skill.

‘Of course, large items don’t fit inside.’

The subspace wasn’t infinite.

The entrance’s diameter was roughly 30 centimeters.

It seemed that as it grew, its storage capacity would also increase.

‘Let’s see how much I’ve gathered.’

I took out all the materials floating inside the subspace and laid them on the ground.

Sixteen black titanium ores.

Five iron ores.

……And a reddish mineral along with a softly gleaming metal.

‘This is an unexpected harvest.’

I picked up the red mineral and the silvery metal.

They were a garnet ore and silver.

‘I honestly didn’t expect to find things like these.’

On very rare occasions, bonus monsters appeared carrying jewels or precious metals.

‘It’s hard enough to encounter one, but to run into them twice.’

A mimic I killed for iron ore had spat out a garnet ore.

And instead of titanium, I encountered a slime carrying silver.

‘The profits look much better than I expected.’

After enough rest, I returned the materials to the subspace and stood up.

‘Now all that’s left is the boss, huh.’

A wolf-shaped monster, slightly smaller than an adult man.

The fatal weakness of animal-type monsters was ‘flame.’

Conveniently enough, that matched perfectly with my main attack skill.

‘I’ve grown quite a bit myself.’

I looked at the Heart of Ilawne.

‘A weapon that grows alongside me.’

As proof of my growth, a small ‘fruit’ had begun to form on the Heart of Ilawne.

‘Thanks to daily training, my body moves more easily too.’

From my once-creaky body, vitality and flexibility were beginning to emerge, even if just a little.

I had also grown accustomed to timing cost recovery and using skills.

It seemed I had reached a level where I could handle at least one person’s share.

‘I can defeat it on my own.’

That was the conclusion I reached.

On my way to the boss’s dwelling.

I paused for a moment.

‘……Ah.’

I belatedly realized one mistake.

This dungeon changed its map each time a normal monster was killed.

I was already familiar with the changing map patterns.

But for my teammates, the dungeon itself must have been unfamiliar.

‘Could they…… have gotten lost by now?’

It was certain.

They might even be in a panic.

‘Because of me, they might request rescue.’

Requesting rescue from a teaching assistant meant abandoning the dungeon raid.

Abandonment would, of course, mean their evaluation score dropped straight to zero.

‘That would be a painful blow.’

Naturally, this practical evaluation wasn’t individual but team-based.

Which meant I too would end up with a score of zero.

‘It was my fault for changing routes without saying anything.’

I had to fix this, even now.

Turning in the opposite direction, I opened the subspace.

In a corner floated a box of red chalk without purpose.

Just one of those ordinary daily items.

It had only been for checking the number of sit-ups I did every day.

‘Good thing I stored even daily necessities in the subspace.’

I took out a piece of chalk and drew an arrow on the wall.

It had been about ten hours since they were trapped in the dungeon.

“……”

Eris lowered her head in front of the blocked passage.

How many times had it been already?

She couldn’t tell her location.

She wasn’t even bad with directions, yet she couldn’t get any sense of where she was.

“……Sorry. It’s my fault.”

Eris bowed her head in self-blame.

Far from clearing the dungeon, it was because she had foolishly suggested taking revenge on Villed that they had gotten lost.

She had ended up causing trouble for her teammates.

“No, Eris. Let’s just look again!”

Her teammates supported her, encouraging her.

But Eris couldn’t relieve the burden weighing on her heart.

She glanced between the map and the passage around her, then shook her head.

‘……It’s wrong. I can’t figure out where this is.’

At first, she tried to deduce her location by reaching the end of the passage.

‘But no matter how many times I tried, none of it matched the map.’

Even with a map in hand, they had gotten stranded in the dungeon.

It was truly laughable.

If the other cadets saw this, they would surely make fun of her.

It was then, as she trudged with heavy steps toward another passage.

“……Hm?”

Eris blinked.

She had caught sight of a marking on the wall.

‘An arrow?’

Feeling bewildered, she shouted.

“Guys, look at this!”

“What is it?”

At her call, the teammates quickly gathered around.

Her finger pointed at a red-chalk-drawn arrow.

“This wasn’t drawn by you, was it?”

When Eris asked, the teammates all shook their heads.

“……Was it here from the start?”

“First time I’ve seen it.”

“Me too.”

Why had they only noticed it now?

Had they been too careless to notice before?

Anyway, if they were to interpret this marking……

“Could it be pointing toward the exit?”

At Eris’s answer, the teammates nodded in agreement all at once.

“But who drew it?”

“Dunno……. Maybe seniors who came here before?”

“Let’s just follow it.”

They walked in the direction the arrow pointed.

And after some time, they reached a spot where the path split in two.

“There’s another one!”

Eris’s face began to light up.

The arrows continued in one direction without fail.

At every fork, arrows appeared again, pointing the way.

“Another one this time too!”

Her once-heavy steps quickened.

They felt hope that they might escape the dungeon.

And as time passed……

They began to see familiar scenes from their memory.

The very place where they had first entered the dungeon.

At last, they had reached the exit.

“We’re saved……!”

Her teammates shouted in joy.

Eris was overjoyed as well, but……

Something bothered her.

‘……I heard the exit only opened after defeating the boss monster?’

Eris felt a strange sense of unease.

“Who defeated the boss?”

At her question, the teammates replied nonchalantly.

“Maybe the TA or professor did, after realizing we were lost?”

Considering how suddenly the boss was defeated, that seemed the closest to the truth.

“Eris, we don’t know what’s going on, but let’s just get out for now.”

Yes.

She wanted to escape this suffocating place as quickly as possible. That was all her teammates were thinking too.

As they all stepped toward the exit.

Only one person stood still.

“Eris?”

At that call, Eris began to move.

……In the opposite direction of the exit.

“Eris? Where are you going!”

“You guys go ahead without me!”

Eris compared the arrows with the map.

Only then could she tell where the map was pointing.

She ran toward the boss’s dwelling.

‘Strange.’

Yes, it was strange, no matter how she thought about it.

‘When we first entered, I didn’t see a single arrow.’

It wasn’t that she had belatedly noticed out of carelessness.

Why wouldn’t she have noticed arrows drawn so large, clearly meant for others to see?

‘It wasn’t drawn by seniors who came before.’

Since she hadn’t seen any while wandering, that didn’t add up.

Then the answer was only one.

It was the work of someone who had entered the dungeon.

‘The others think the boss was defeated by the TA.’

Nonsense.

There was no way that would happen.

So long as they hadn’t given up midway, there was no reason for the TA to help them.

It was certainly the work of one of the five teammates.

Most likely the one person who could move freely, without being restrained.

‘No way…… it couldn’t be…….’

Eris denied it.

Until she saw with her own eyes, she couldn’t believe it.

Eris ran hurriedly in the opposite direction of the arrows.

How long did she run?

‘……I’m here.’

The sight ahead began to differ from the dungeon’s endless white brick walls.

‘A cave?’

It even smelled of wild animals.

From its distinctiveness, it was clear this was the boss’s lair.

Eris lowered her footsteps and slowly approached the cave.

When she listened closely, she heard faint sounds.

“Huff……. Huff…….”

Heavy breathing.

It wasn’t a monster.

It was the sound of a person.

‘Someone’s here.’

Eris slowly peeked into the cave.

Had someone lit a campfire there?

She could see a large shadow cast upon the cave wall.

‘……Who is it?’

To see who owned that shadow.

Eris leaned further to get a look.

‘What.’

She fell silent at the sight of someone who shouldn’t be there.

Drenched in sweat, leaning against the wall to rest—Villed.

And beside him……

Lay a piece of red chalk.

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